James Franco: I used to be a difficult actor

James Franco admits he’s been ‘a little difficult’ in the past (Picture: AP)

James Franco says he can pull off a magic trick in which his burning hand transforms into a dove. ‘Sadly, you will not get to see any doves materialise in Oz,’ he says, his tone so droll that I’m unsure whether to believe any of it. But he apparently speaks the truth. ‘Honestly, I have footage on my iPhone,’ he says. ‘I’ll put them online in a few years.’

His new movie, Oz The Great And Powerful, is a prequel of sorts to The Wizard Of Oz. It introduces the Wicked Witch of the West (Mila Kunis) before she became the famed green meanie in the beloved 1939 classic and Oscar Diggs, aka Oz (Franco), before he was the Wizard, if indeed he even is. It also forms a reunion with Sam Raimi, who directed Franco in the trio of Tobey Maguire-Kirsten Dunst Spider-Man films, starting in 2002.

‘I was a little difficult on that film,’ admits Franco, shrugging his shoulders in some sort of approximation of embarrassment. ‘I remember Sam asked me to say this line in the first Spider-Man film. And I think I said [launches into petulant tone]: “No, Sam, I am not going to say it.” I am less difficult now.’

Raimi says Franco, circa Spider-Man, was an actor ‘who thought he knew it all’ – but patently didn’t. ‘I realised that acting couldn’t be the only thing in my life,’ says Franco. ‘So I went back to university, and to many other universities, to engage in my interests. Now, when I’m hired as an actor, I can just be the actor because I get to do other things I want to do in a different sphere.’

Oz was a role pursued by legions of leading Hollywood men, including Robert Downey Jr. But Raimi saw something in his matured former colleague.

‘Oz is selfish when we first meet him and goes on this journey of self-discovery,’ says Raimi, who joins Franco in an LA hotel room. ‘He becomes a selfless man. I knew from experience that James can be selfish but I have seen him develop that quality where he can give to others. When I cast an actor, I look for qualities that are really in them. Of course, he also had to have charm and pizzazz.’

Franco views himself as something of a wizard who navigates different worlds. He is an A-list movie star, nominated for a best actor Oscar in 2011 for his unsettling portrayal in 127 Hours of trapped climber Aron Ralston, who famously amputated his own arm. The film changed the way Hollywood viewed Franco while his academic career changed the way Franco viewed himself. He is a film lecturer at UCLA, where he teaches film production and screenwriting.

James Franco as Aron Ralston in 127 Hours (Picture: PR)

‘The movie and the character are parallel to what I do in my life,’ he says. ‘Oz is an inventor, an artist. He goes to this land where people can do actual magic. He can’t but he learns that his earthbound sleight of hand, or his way of entertaining people, is, in its own way, valuable.’

Is Franco happier than he has been? ‘I think so,’ he smiles, eyes twinkling, altogether more friendly and engaged than he has seemed in previous encounters. ‘I try to be honest about who I am. This is the life I’ve chosen and there’s no way to avoid certain kinds of exposure.’

Franco has been honest about his life as a teenager in Palo Alto, California as one of three brothers raised in an academic, liberal family.

‘I had a period where I did get in trouble quite a bit,’ he says. ‘Although most of my arrests were really silly, underage drinking, graffiti, that kind of thing.’

He says it was not that he experienced a ‘hallelujah’ moment, rather that he felt the wrath of his parents.

‘They were certainly vocal that I was not doing the right thing,’ he says. ‘I was even made a ward of the court. I remember the judge saying to me the last time I was arrested: “I’m looking at your school reports and your grades and it doesn’t make sense.”’ Franco had long been a straight-A student.

‘The judge gave me one last chance and I’m glad she did,’ he says, adding that he scrambled to fill his time with art classes and reading. He enrolled in the theatre programme at UCLA but dropped out to pursue a career in acting. Things went well: he won a role on the TV series Freaks And Geeks and, in so doing, a spot in Judd Apatow’s loose film collaborative, which included the likes of Seth Rogen, Paul Rudd and Jason Segel. Franco’s first film was 1999’s Never Been Kissed, opposite Drew Barrymore and by 2001 he had won a Golden Globe for his TV film portrayal of James Dean.

Now, his portfolio looks very different. Franco has produced Kink, about a porn production company; co-directed Interior, Leather Bar, about the gay S&M scene; is planning a documentary about Gucci; and is set to make his directorial debut with American Tabloid, based on James Ellroy’s 1995 novel about three law enforcement officers and their role in JFK’s assassination. He is also planning to produce and star in Beautiful People, about LA hairdresser Jay Sebring, who was murdered with Sharon Tate, Roman Polanski’s doomed pregnant wife.

How would this ‘wizard’ traversing such different worlds describe the message of Oz The Great And Powerful? ‘There are a couple,’ he says. ‘Escapism itself is not such a bad thing in certain cases and learn to use your skills for a greater good. I guess that’s what it is.’